House Speaker John Boehner last night told Jay Leno that he likes wine and cigarettes too much to run for president.
In his first appearance on Leno’s show, Boehner was asked if he had any interest in running for president.
“Listen, I like to play golf,” said the Ohio Republican and archenemy of President Obama. “I like to cut my own grass. You know, I do drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes. And I’m not giving that up to be the President of the United States.”
The audience cheered Boehner’s response—though it wasn’t clear if they were cheering their support for smoking and drinking, or the fact that Boehner will never be their president.
Before Boehner came out, Leno made his fun of his famous tan, saying it was so cold that instead of looking orange, Boehner looked blue.
After showing a photo of Boehner’s family, Leno asked him about his upbringing and his darker complexion.
“Never a spray tan?” Leno asked.
“There are no tanning beds,” Boehner said. “There is no spray anything.”
“My mother is dark complexioned,” he added.
The Speaker joked about how his name is often mispronounced, but said he was happy his name wasn’t Weiner—referring to the disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who had to resign after it was revealed he was sending women text pictures of his privates.
Boehner said he gets along fine with President Obama.
But, “We think Obamacare is bad for the country. We think we shouldn’t spend more than what we bring in. We think the President is ignoring the law. It’s all a fight over tactics. It’s not over what our goals are.”
“We get along fine, but we come at our jobs from a very different perspective,” he told Leno. “I’m right of center, I think he’s way left of center. ”
As for his battles with the Tea Party Republicans, he said, “It’s all a fight over tactics. It’s not over what our goals are.”
Boehner said he tried to get the members of his party to steer clear of last year’s government shutdown, though he agreed that the rollout of Obamacare should be delayed.
“A leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk,” Boehner said. “I said, ‘you want to fight this fight, I’ll go fight the fight with you,’ but it was a very predictable disaster.”
